Is Santa Real?

Growing up one of the best times for me was Christmas. My parents didn't have the best marriage and fought all the time, but it seemed like it was less during Christmas. It may just be that I was so excited that it seemed that way, but either way I remember being a happy family around Christmas time. My parents would always take us to the North Pole (a Christmas themed amusement park). We would drink hot cocoa and listen to Christmas music while putting up the tree. My dad always did an exceptional job of being Santa. He was so committed to the part he even dropped a Barbie mansion down the chimney one year when I was little.

My husband and I decided that we wanted Santa to be a part of our Christmas traditions with our children. This is a personal choice for each family. We have several friends who do not ever choose to do Santa as a part of Christmas and I respect that decision for their families. For us it was about keeping our children innocent for as long as possible. Children nowadays are growing up so fast! We wanted to enjoy this short period of time where kids actually believe in flying reindeer and other Christmas magic.

Christ has always been and will always be the reason for the season in our home. We make sure that our children know the true meaning of Christmas and enjoy celebrating the birth of our savior. For us Santa never took away from that, but just added to the fun and celebration.

I Love Christmas!  I love playing Santa for my kids, and as much as I hate to admit it I would miss that annoying elf on the shelf if we didn't do it (I am the worst about the elf! We have an understanding in our home that our elf is just extremely lazy and tired). 

Having said all that I am now to the point of this post. Christmas as I have known it for my daughter's entire life is never going to be the same. My precious nine year old girl has been asking me about Santa lately. I had kinda been brushing it off with comments like "Santa is real for those who believe he is". Quickly changing the subject trying to prepare myself for the talk where a portion of that innocent sparkle leaves my little girl.

After lots of research and prayer I devised a plan to tell my sweet girl the truth of Santa, and here is how it went...

Today I arranged for the baby to be with grandma and told my girl I wanted to take her out to a very special lunch. She was excited, but very curious about what was going on. I didn't tell her anything other than that we need to talk about something good that was happening.

She picked her most favorite restaurant and asked me before the waitress was finished taking our drink order what we were there for. I told her once we got our food I would talk to her (there were kids right next to us). By the time our food came she was looking at me like she was going to explode.

I told her that we were there to talk about Santa since she had been asking lots of questions lately. I told her I wanted her to know the truth, that her dad and I felt she was old enough now to know. We talked about the history of Saint Nicholas, and that at one point long ago a very kind man started to give gifts to help cheer up kids. We talked about the qualities Santa possessed, such as kindness.

I told my sweet girl that she is one of the kindest people I know, and gave examples of how she shows kindness to others. We did this with each quality of Santa. I then told her that the spirit of Santa is kept alive by people like her. People who want to give to others.

We talked about how Santa is a choice that families make for their children and the reasons why her dad and I chose to do it for her. We also talked about how other families choose not to do Santa and how that is also a choice families make, and why they choose not to and the positive side of that.

After all of this I told my sweet girl that today is so special because today is the day that she becomes a Santa. The smile on her face was so big!  We talked about what a big responsibility it is, and how she cannot tell other kids.

I told her that this year she will get to be Santa for her brother. We talked about all the things you do as a Santa, shopping for gifts (wrapping them in special Santa paper), munching on the carrots put out for the reindeer (she hates carrots and made a yuck face), eating the Santa cookies (she grinned really big), and all the other fun stuff we do as parents for our kids during Christmas.

We prayed together and thanked the Lord for our day and for the opportunity to be silly and spread joy to others in this fun way.

We joked and talked about it all of our time together. She even commented on how the jello was red and green. I told her that she is noticing things like that now because she has become a Santa. We both laughed and had so much fun.

I gave my sweet girl a special assignment. She is to pick someone and secretly deliver them a gift from Santa. The person can never know it was her. She is so excited! She has been brainstorming ideas to get for the little boy she picked all day!

After lunch we made one last stop to hobby lobby. I told my girl to pick any Santa decoration she wanted to help us remember the day she became a Santa. We walked to isles and looked at all the Santa stuff until she finally picked a beautiful Santa snow globe.

She was so excited to tell all the adults about how she became a Santa.

This new season is hard. I cried at lunch as I prayed with my sweet girl, knowing she was growing up. Squeezing her tight and wishing that this time had not come so soon. But today was a good day, the memory of today will be with my girl forever. This new season is different, and different is hard, but we are off to a good start. I look forward to many more lunches secretly working together to make the magic of Santa special for her brother.

If you ask my daughter if Santa is real, and she eagerly replies "yes! "  with a grin and sparkle in her eyes you will know the reason.

I am so thankful to the Lord for my precious girl <3